BEIRUT — Tensions emerged Wednesday in a newly announced alliance between al-Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq and the most powerful Syrian rebel faction, which said it was not consulted before the Iraqi group announced their merger and only heard about it through the media.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq said Tuesday that it had joined forces with Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front — the most effective force among the mosaic of rebel brigades fighting to topple President Bashar Assad in Syria’s civil war.

On Wednesday, Nusra leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani appeared to distance himself from claims the two groups had merged. Instead, he pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Syrian government seized upon the purported merger to back its assertion that it is not facing a true popular movement for change but rather a foreign-backed terrorist plot. The state news agency said Wednesday that the union “proves that this opposition was never anything other than a tool used by the West and by terrorists to destroy the Syrian people.”

The U.S. has designated Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist organization over its links with al-Qaeda, and the Syrian group’s public ties with the terrorist network are unlikely to prompt a shift in international support for the broader Syrian opposition.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who met with Syrian opposition leaders in London on Wednesday, hinted at a new non-lethal aid package for the rebels this week. The U.S. opposes directly arming Syrian opposition fighters.

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